#KneipenKultur Comeback
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2,000 years · 9 stops · 25 facts

A journey through German pub culture

From the Roman counter to today’s comeback: wherever people come together, there is a bar. Nine stops, each dressed in the style of its time.

The journey begins

Stop 1 · From the Romans to the Middle Ages

Before there were pubs, there was already a counter

Back then at the bar: for some 2,000 years the same rule has held — wherever people are on the move, they need a place for food, drink and news.

The Romans already had a bar.

Cookshops lined the Roman trade routes — shops opening onto the street with a masonry counter, ancient snack bars in effect. After the end of Rome, monasteries and so-called tapsters took over the business of feeding travellers.

A green branch above the door meant: there’s something to drink here.

That is how you spotted a tavern in the Middle Ages — painted inn signs only came later. The tavern was a news exchange and even a place of law: contracts were sealed there with a communal drink, the “Weinkauf” or wine purchase. And until the 18th century the landlord was obliged to serve and lodge every guest.

Which is the oldest inn in the country?

Two houses claim the title: in Freiburg’s “Roter Bären” a landlord is on record in 1387, while the “Zum Riesen” inn in Miltenberg first appears in the files in 1411 and later put up princes. What is certain: both have been serving for more than 600 years — longer than most states have existed.

Did you know?

The famous beer decree of 1516 — barley, hops and water only — was also a price cap: a measure of winter beer was not allowed to cost more than one Munich pfennig. And the word “Reinheitsgebot”, the purity law itself? It was only coined in 1909.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 2 · The 19th century

The birth of the corner pub

Back then at the bar: factories are growing, flats are cramped — and on the corner appears the place that is everything at once: living room, job exchange, stage.

The second living room.

Industrialisation drew people into the cities, where they lived in the tightest of quarters — the pub down the street became a stand-in for the living room they did not have, pub researchers say. In port cities it doubled as a job exchange, and more than one career began behind the bar: Friedrich Ebert, later the first head of state of the Weimar Republic, ran a tavern of his own in Bremen for six years from 1894.

One pub for every 115 people.

The 1885 statistics crowned Duisburg-Ruhrort the pub capital of the industrial heartland: one pub per 115 inhabitants. Cologne managed 163, Düsseldorf 239, Essen 287. The pub network was never that dense again.

1844: Munich rises up — over the price of beer.

When the measure of summer beer went up, four days of rioting broke out in Munich; more than 30 breweries were wrecked, and the military at times preferred to watch. King Ludwig I gave in and lowered the price of beer. To this day the Munich city archive keeps a “commemorative sheet on the so-called beer revolution”.

— Did you know? —

The word “Kneipe” comes from “kneipen” — to pinch, to nip, to squeeze. In the 18th century students called a tiny tavern a “Kneipschenke”: a room so narrow that you sat squeezed together. The short form stuck.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 3 · 1900–1945

Schnapps bars, ballrooms — and a dance ban

Back then at the bar: around 1900 Berlin drinks standing up, in the twenties the whole country dances — until the lights go out.

The Destille: schnapps standing up, a meatball on the side.

Around 1900 the Berlin “Destille” was the epitome of the plain pub: seats were the exception, drinking was done standing. Only after 1880 did beer taverns with a small menu appear — meatball, bockwurst, rollmops. Incidentally, Berliners still say “Destille” today.

899 venues licensed to dance.

In 1930, dancing was officially permitted in 899 Berlin venues — from the ballroom for the thin wallet to the mirrored hall for the smart set, as at Clärchens Ballhaus, still going today with its two separate halls. In 1942 dancing was banned — and it took years before anyone celebrated again.

Did you know?

The sparkling wine tax is a souvenir of the Kaiser: introduced in 1902 to pay for the imperial navy. Kaiser gone, fleet gone — the tax is still here: 1.02 euros a bottle, around 350 million euros a year.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 4 · 1949–1979

The economic miracle at the bar

Back then at the bar: after the darkest years people raise a glass again — cautiously at first, then in record quantities.

Watching football — ticket holders only.

At the “Miracle of Bern” in 1954 there were only around 40,000 television sets in the whole of West Germany. Pubs with a set were in such demand that they handed out admission cards for the final. The television pub was born — long before Sportschau (from 1961) turned into a weekend ritual.

1976: the thirstiest year of them all.

151 litresof beer per head per year — an all-time record. For comparison: in 1950 it was 35.6 litres, today it is around 88. Never before and never since has Germany drunk more beer than in the mid-seventies.

1975: Europe’s first women’s pub.

For centuries the pub’s guest room was male territory — behind the bar, though, women often ran the show, as founders, bosses and heirs. In 1975 Berlin turned the tables completely: the “Blocksberg” opened on Yorckstraße as Europe’s first women’s pub, and many cities followed.

Did you know?

The Ruhr region’s Trinkhalle was invented as an anti-pub: launched in the middle of the 19th century as an outlet for mineral water (“Seltersbude”), it was meant to steer the workforce away from schnapps. By 1900 there were more than 600 of them — today the kiosks are a cult of their own.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 5 · East & West, 1949–1989

Two countries, one after-work beer

Back then at the bar: forty years, two systems — and at both bars the same ritual: clocking off, a beer, a chat with the neighbours.

WEST

Closing time? Abolished.

West Berlin abolished the mandatory closing hour as early as 1949 — supposedly because venues in the eastern half were allowed to stay open an hour longer, so the West simply did away with it altogether. The result: nights without last orders, which later drew even David Bowie and Iggy Pop.

Price of a beer: your own calculation.

In the West the landlords did the maths themselves — every price an entrepreneurial decision.

EAST

Closing time? By decree.

In the GDR the rule was: midnight on weekdays, one o’clock at the weekend — for the sake of “undisturbed night-time rest”.

Price of a beer: a state price band.

Venues were sorted into price bands: a light beer cost between 0.40 marks (band I) and 0.63 marks (band III), and many prices stayed unchanged for years. The band was even printed on the menu.

The same corner pub — whichever side of the Wall.

The Metzer Eck in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg was founded in 1913 (starting capital: a lottery win) and stayed with the same family across four generations — a private business throughout the GDR era. The original furniture is still in place, and so is the rule: regulars’ table, neighbourhood, putting the world to rights. Some things no system changes.

Did you know?

On grilled chicken both sides agreed: in the West the Wienerwald chain boomed, in the East the “Goldbroiler” bars opened from 1967 onwards. And because English names were unwelcome in the GDR, hot dog, hamburger and pizza were called Ketwurst, Grilletta and Krusta.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 6 · The 1980s

The corner pub’s golden age

Back then at the bar: tap, dartboard, jukebox — the corner pub lives through its last great heyday, and the thirst for beer stays close to record levels.

One pub for every 364 Berliners.

In 1980 there was statistically one tavern for just 364 inhabitants in Berlin — today it is one classic pub for around 4,000. All told, the city once had some 20,000 neighbourhood pubs. The eighties were the decade when beer was pulled on almost every corner.

146 litres per head: record territory.

In 1980 beer consumption stood at 145.9 litres per head per year, in 1985 almost unchanged at 145.8 — the fuel of the pub boom. For comparison: in 2020 it was 94.6 litres.

Did you know?

The most famous pub of the eighties stood in a television studio: from December 1985 the “Akropolis” was the meeting point of “Lindenstraße” — with more than ten million viewers per episode. The neon lettering hangs in the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn today.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 7 · The 1990s

Upheaval, kick-off and a touch of Ireland

Back then at the bar: after the fall of the Wall the pub landscape rearranges itself — and all of a sudden pay-TV is flickering above the bar.

A fresh start in the East.

At the time of monetary union in 1990, East Berlin alone still had 620 venues with 13,500 staff belonging to the state catering enterprise; it was wound up in 1992. Within two years thousands of venues passed into private hands — for many landlords a jump into the deep end, for some the start of a new era.

2 March 1991: football becomes a pub affair.

That was the day the first live Bundesliga match went out on pay-TV — Frankfurt beat Kaiserslautern 4:3. Because hardly anyone could afford a decoder at home, the pub with a subscription became the nation’s football living room: the birth of German sports bar culture.

Guinness instead of pils: the Irish pub wave rolls in.

In the nineties Irish pubs opened one after another in German cities — some complete with interiors flown in, like the Kilkenny in Berlin in 1992. The oldest Irish pub still trading in Germany is older still: Munich, since 1977.

Did you know?

The pub quiz is a souvenir of that wave: at the end of the nineties it reached Germany by way of Irish and British pubs — early strongholds were Berlin, Bremen and Münster.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 8 · The 2000s

Smoke signals and a summer fairytale

Back then at the bar: the decade brings smoking bans, a summer fairytale — and the first noticeably empty bars.

Karlsruhe saves the corner pub.

In 2007/2008 every federal state introduced a smoking ban in hospitality. In July 2008 the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that small one-room pubs were hit too hard by it — under certain conditions they were allowed to let smokers back in. Bavaria ended the debate in 2010 by referendum, with the strictest smoking ban in the country and no exceptions at all.

2006: the summer fairytale invents watching in a crowd.

At the home World Cup around 300,000 people watched the opening match on Berlin’s fan mile; for the round of 16 it was 750,000. For pubs that was competition and confirmation at once: football is best watched together.

The decline sets in.

In 2002 Germany still counted around 46,500 pubs and taverns. By 2010 there were 35,633 — a quarter fewer in a single decade. Canned beer from the discounter, changing nights out and the smoking ban hit the classic pub all at the same time.

Did you know?

In American English, “public viewing” actually means the public lying-in-state of someone who has died. It took the 2006 World Cup to turn it into the German word for watching football together.

Sources for this stop +

Stop 9 · The 2010s to today

Last orders? Hardly.

Back then (and today) at the bar: first it goes quiet at a great many bars — then, of all people, the young come back.

?

Pubs in Germany

21,000

In 2002 there were still around 46,500 — by 2022 less than half were left.

Neighbourhood pubs in Berlin

500

Of some 20,000 neighbourhood and corner pubs, around 500 are still open.

Friends with a local

7.2 rather than 6

People with a local of their own have more close friends on average, the research shows.

Covid hit pubs harder than anyone else.

Between March 2020 and January 2021, turnover at businesses that mainly serve drinks collapsed by 62 per cent — the steepest drop anywhere in hospitality. Anyone living off the bar and the regulars’ table could not build a delivery business the way restaurants did.

Alcohol-free is booming — and craft beer is a re-import.

Production of alcohol-free beer has almost doubled in ten years (2024: around 579 million litres). And the craft beer wave of the 2010s comes with a neat punchline: the American craft movement was once inspired by German brewmasters — so the trend came home as a returnee.

The comeback: the young take over the bar.

Young people are rediscovering the pub — for the affordable prices, the dartboard, the pub quiz and real conversation instead of a phone screen. Teams in their thirties are taking over long-established places, and the research throws in the loveliest argument of all: people with a local of their own have more close friends on average — 7.2 rather than 6.

Did you know?

Belgium’s beer culture has been on the UNESCO list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity since 2016. German craft brewing at least made it onto the national register (2020) — German pub culture itself is on neither. There is room to grow.

Sources for this stop +

The next stop

2,000 years behind the bar — and the story is not over.

With KneipenKultur Comeback we are writing the next stop: a privately funded pilot programme that strengthens existing pubs and village inns — in Brandenburg and the Ruhr region.

To the pilot programme I run a pub

#KneipenKultur